President Donald Trump wants educators鈥攁t least some of them鈥攖o carry guns as a defensive measure against school shootings. He鈥檚 partial to arming staff who鈥檝e previously served in the military, for example, as well as teachers who鈥檝e been trained, and has suggested up to 20 percent of teachers could do it.
But is there an easy way for Trump鈥檚 vision to become a large-scale reality? When it comes to arming educators en masse, there are several potential snags, hurdles, and considerations to keep in mind. After talking with a few experts, we listed some of them below.
First, some background: States like Texas and Utah already allow teachers鈥攚ith certain caveats鈥攖o carry guns on school grounds, so the idea isn鈥檛 new. Nevertheless, his proposal, made a few days after the mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla., would be a radical change for the vast majority of schools.
Interest in the idea is picking up in a few locations: Key committees in the Florida Legislature to train and arm teachers and give them bonuses at districts鈥� discretion. And on Monday, a Kentucky district voted to . Trump himself said decisions on this front should be up to the states.
One statistic to keep in mind: In 2015, the feds estimated there were about 3.6 million full-time elementary and secondary school teachers鈥攐ut of those, about 3.1 million were in public schools. Arm 20 percent of them, and that鈥檚 about 720,000 teachers carrying guns on campus. That鈥檚 excluding administrators and other school employees.
1) Changes to State Laws
This could be the most important item on this list. The federal Gun-Free School Zones Act allows states to authorize certain individuals to carry firearms on school grounds. Since at least 2016, Trump has said he wants to scrap the Gun-Free School Zones Act. He鈥檚 argued that it merely turns schools into bait for school shooters. But if he truly wants to leave these decisions up to states, as he indicated, it鈥檚 not clear that he and Congress would need to push such an appeal.
Still, any national effort to ramp up the number of armed educators wouldn鈥檛 look comprehensive if a large number of states refused to sign on. Even if the federal law went in the trash, states could pass their own laws prohibiting the practice. Some states are that includes states in the Northeast like Massachusetts and New York. The coalition鈥檚 mission is to track and intercept illegal guns, although gun-control advocates in those places are calling on more pro-active gun control measures.
The Texas Association of School Boards on how districts there can handle providing school staff with guns鈥擳exas law allows designated school employees (called 鈥渟chool marshals鈥� like the Florida proposal) to carry firearms under certain circumstances.
2) Selecting Staff Members to Carry Firearms
Districts would have to think carefully about how to select school employees who would carry firearms, statistical ratios for how many educators are armed, whether administrators would be armed, and so on. The Texas primer says that if a school employee who is authorized to carry a handgun has 鈥渞egular, direct contact with students,鈥� that employee must keep the firearm in a 鈥渓ocked and secure鈥� safe on school grounds and within 鈥渋mmediate鈥� reach. Such an employee can鈥檛 regularly carry the gun on his or her person. Districts would also have to ensure educators pass background checks.
Another question to consider: How would a state or district respond if no one at a particular school wanted to carry a firearm on school grounds? The prospect of forcing a teacher to carry a concealed firearm or to keep a gun on his or her classroom could present all kinds of legal and ethical problems.
Districts would also need to decide if hiring decisions for school employees would be impacted by the potential hire鈥檚 willingness or ability to carry a firearm. Could there be claims of discrimination if only certain types of school employees are selected to carry firearms? And in districts where teacher turnover is a big challenge, finding educators to replace those who had been armed could be a big headache.
3) Money for Firearms and Related Equipment
鈥� You can buy a handgun for just a few hundred dollars. But districts could get into trouble if they arm their teachers in the name of protecting children, only to get cheap and not particularly reliable handguns, said Mac Hardy, the director of operations at the National Association of School Resource Officers. A high-quality, name-brand, semi-automatic pistol or other type of handgun could run anywhere from $500 to $1,200, he said. And not all teachers might feel comfortable with the same firearm. The Texas school boards association primer notes districts will have to decide if they let armed school employees use their own weapons for school security.
鈥� There would also be the cost of ammunition and holsters for when educators would carry them. In particular, districts would have to be mindful of what kind of ammunition they would provide.
鈥� Then there are gun safes for staff members who don鈥檛 carry their guns at all times. Teachers and other staff also might want to or be required to leave their guns when they go home for the day, or in other situations. Biometric safes would likely be best, Hardy said, since they remove the need for fumbling with a key in high-pressure situations. And since requiring all teachers to run to just one gun safe in the middle of an incident could lead to a protracted and lethal delay, each school staff member authorized to carry a firearm might require a gun safe.
Here鈥檚 a general point about costs: In states or districts where there is a big strain on education spending or recent cuts in K-12 aid, the idea of diverting already stretched resources to these and other costs could be a very tough sell.
4) Money for Training
Trump said he wants school staff who鈥檝e already been trained with firearms to be armed at school, not just any teacher. In theory, that could reduce or eliminate the costs of training educators in firearms.
However, Hardy鈥檚 association pointed out soon after the Parkland, Fla., mass shooting that maintaining one鈥檚 skill with a firearm, even if one has a decent amount of prior experience with guns, is very important. At minimum, a person wishing to remain proficient with a gun would need monthly training sessions and a handful of tests a year to gauge marksmanship, Hardy said. That adds to the potential costs for any one school or district, as well as the time it would take to keep up a program to arm educators. (More on that below.)
鈥淵ou鈥檙e in a crowded environment with a lot of moving pieces in that school,鈥� Hardy said. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e responsible for whatever comes out of that weapon. It鈥檚 not a video game.鈥�
Separate from the state requirements for getting a license to carry a handgun, the Texas 鈥渟chool marshals鈥� program requires a psychological exam and 80 hours of training on various issues, including:
鈥� strategies for preventing school shootings and securing potential victims of school shootings,
鈥� 鈥渆ffective law enforcement strategies and techniques,鈥� and
鈥� 鈥減roficiency鈥� with a handgun.
5) Money for Bonuses
Trump floated the idea that teachers could get some kind of additional compensation for carrying firearms at school and being willing to protect students. States or districts would need to work out just how much bonus pay a teacher would get for taking on this extra responsibility, although those sorts of negotiations could get very tricky very quickly. For example, how would merit pay for carrying a firearm compare to merit pay for strong student performance on tests?
A 2017 University of Vanderbilt analysis noted that various types of teacher bonuses, gifts, and permanent pay increases based on merit in recent years (page 20). Again, there鈥檚 that issue of schools were dollars are already scarce, and how school communities might react to some of those dollars being redirected to this kind of merit pay.
6) Accounting for New Liability
Consider these nightmare scenarios:
A student accidentally finds or steals a teacher鈥檚 forgotten firearm and uses it. A teacher accidentally discharges his or her firearm. A teacher uses a firearm deliberately but inappropriately. Someone breaks into a school and steals teachers鈥� firearms. A teacher uses his or her firearm during an active-shooter incident, but accidentally shoots a student, another teacher, a police officer who鈥檚 rushed to the scene, or some other innocent bystander. Case in point: In Utah, a teacher .
Any such incident could add to a district鈥檚 insurance costs for having a not-insignificant share of teachers and other school staff carry firearms. Individuals and institutions can be indemnified from liability to a certain extent, but the insurance costs for districts could easily rise steeply in a situation where educators are armed. How, for example, would districts treat teachers who carry their own guns to school differently from those who use a weapon bought for them by the district?
鈥淵ou might need a whole restructuring of the legal framework to place a school employee in that role as a law enforcement officer,鈥� said Francisco Negr贸n, the general counsel of the National School Boards Association. 鈥淕od forbid if there鈥檚 a tragedy. Who is responsible for that? Is it the teacher if they were acting in good faith? Is it the school district?鈥�
7) Accounting for Lawsuits
This is connected to the section above about liability. If there鈥檚 some sort of an accident or other unintended consequence of having firearms in any particular school or school district, that could result in a complex and ultimately costly lawsuit. But in the current legal and political climate, other legal challenges could pop up. For example, what if a parent or advocacy group challenges a district or state policy that allows educators to carry guns?
Related: Our colleague Mark Walsh wrote about the legal ramifications facing Broward County schools after the shootings earlier this month.
8) Changing Collective-Bargaining Agreements
This is potentially connected to the sections about merit pay and training. Asking teachers or other school staff to engage in additional activities like training that鈥檚 related to their work might run afoul of their labor contracts.
Districts might find it difficult to negotiate with some collective-bargaining units to amend those contracts in order to accomodate the goal of arming some educators. American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten has already made it clear .
Thomas Gentzel, the National School Boards Association鈥檚 executive director and CEO, didn鈥檛 say his group was completely opposed to the idea of arming educators. But Gentzel did say, ""We hire educators to educate children. And that should be their focus. Most educators are not qualified to use a firearm.鈥�
9) Involving 69传媒, Parents, and Others
The Texas school boards group says that districts must tell an inquiring parent if anyone working at his or her child鈥檚 school is authorized to carry a weapon as a 鈥渟chool marshal.鈥� However, Lone Star State districts are barred from identifying any such school employee.
More broadly, districts would have to decide how to consider public input about the pros and cons of arming educators before making any decisions. What if parents made it clear they didn鈥檛 want the policy but district officials decided to go ahead anyway? With school safety and gun control once again at the center of divisive political debates, reaching quick and easy decisions on this issue with little public input might not be so simple. In addition, a community鈥檚 police department or law enforcement agency might express opposition to the idea. Hardy鈥檚 association opposes calls to arm teachers.
10) Public Disclosures
Beyond getting community input and providing limited information to parents, districts would have to consider what information they legally could and could not disclose to the press and the general public, from their general emergency-operations strategies for dealing with active shooters and other dangerous situations, to what they will reveal about actual incidents. In Arkansas, for example, school safety plans are exempt from open-records laws.
School officials would have to balance the public鈥檚 desire to know particulars about a district鈥檚 approach to security, protocols for use and storage of firearms, and other policies with the desire to protect teachers and others who might carry guns at school. In Texas, a parent鈥檚 right to know details about a school鈥檚 security plans generally does not exceed the general public鈥檚 right to know that information, the school boards association noted. Could schools effectively 鈥渃lassify鈥� such controversial information like the federal government does for national security reasons?
11) States and Districts Would Need More Than a New Law
If a state took Trump鈥檚 idea and ran with it, lawmakers would have to do more than pass a law. State policmakers would then have to write regulations for that law.
Then districts would have to write their own policies and plans for the use of deadly force in schools during an active-shooter or other dangerous situation. The Texas school boards group says districts should also coordinate with local law enforcement to ensure that police officers are aware of schools where educators may be armed.
12) Who Could Opt Out?
Just as certain districts in one state might decide that arming teachers is right for them, certain districts in the same state might decide not to arm any teachers at all. Districts might obviously object to being forced by a new state law to arm school staff, although a state mandate for districts to train and arm educators might not be a popular route.
But here鈥檚 a potentially thornier question: What if a district adopted a policy for arming educators, but a particular school decided, for reasons related to the school鈥檚 location or other environmental factors, that arming teachers is the wrong move? Could a school win a carve-out from the policy, or would it be forced to go to court? Could a school board work out accomodations with individual schools?
Made it this far? Check out our Education Week colleague Kavitha Cardoza鈥檚 exploration of arming teachers:
Photo: President Donald Trump speaks as he hosts a listening session about school violence with high school students, teachers and parents in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington on Feb. 21. (Carolyn Kaster/AP)